Chapter Ten
Those two still-hot horses
without saddles, without reins,
without any horsemen,
foaming, insisting, crazy,
thrust, and heaved like death.
My four eyes became four men on four sides
and rushed and ran. The crowd dispersed and screamed,
anyone left was trampled pitilessly on the road,
the rest flew, like gushing blood. (a fragment)
-Belgi
After a series of convulsions in late 1991 and 1992 the former boxer Islam Karimov, now slightly battered and groggy, managed nonetheless to stay on his feet and, even more than that, he began gradually scoring points or, to use the language of politics, consolidating his power. The first to feel this were those immediately around him – the members of his team and the deputies of the Supreme Soviet but also, ludicrously enough, the c
